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6.
<ul><li>Janne Kalliola is founder and CEO of Exove </li></ul><ul><li>He has strong technical background on PHP, Java, and C </li></ul><ul><li>He has been leading product development in telecom middleware and MySQL clustering companies </li></ul><ul><li>He has been working with Internet publishing since 1997 </li></ul>

16.
Hiring Right People <ul><li>Drupal experts are a rare breed </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Nowadays in Finland, demand exceeds supply </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Chances are that you cannot find ready-made Drupalists </li></ul><ul><li>Instead, you have to hire good people and help them to grow to be Drupal experts </li></ul>

17.
What Kind of People to Hire? <ul><li>Theoretical knowledge and practical experience in programming – preferably with several languages </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Includes also databases, basic protocols and such </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Extra points from CMS, high-availability experience, protocol programming, or open source projects </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Experience with various systems is a big plus </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Gives perspective and helps to choose the best fitting solution for each problem </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Earlier experience with LAMP stack is not that important, it is pretty simple system to learn </li></ul>

18.
What Kind of People to Hire? <ul><li>Fast learners </li></ul><ul><li>Open-minded towards new things, flexible </li></ul><ul><li>Knows her limitations and is able to ask for help </li></ul><ul><li>Has a will to serve and help the customer, using the technology as a tool – not vice versa </li></ul>

19.
Who Should Be Avoided? <ul><li>People with near-zero programming experience </li></ul><ul><li>People that have stopped learning new things </li></ul><ul><li>Those that do not want to be in any touch with customers, sales, or management </li></ul><ul><li>People that start to propose solutions before discussing the challenges first </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Those that think that technology is an answer to all problems </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Zealots and pessimists </li></ul><ul><ul><li>They reduce the energy level of the organisation </li></ul></ul>

21.
How to Grow the Experience? <ul><li>We have found that the best way to learn is to: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Start working on a real project </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Get mentoring from a senior colleague </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Encourage the new joiner to ask for help </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Have internal support and training mechanisms in place </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Have supporting and easy-going environment </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Also, time spent on practical issues (version control hassles, coding standard hiccups, etc.) should be minimised by proper set-ups, short trainings, and mentoring </li></ul>

22.
Working Methodologies <ul><li>The key is to share the knowledge </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Designing and assessing the system and its components in pairs </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Nominating experts for certain topics (security, performance, databases, …) and making sure that the organisation knows these people </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Having internal audit or reading each other’s code </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Always explaining the reasoning behind a decision that has been made before the person has joined the company </li></ul></ul><ul><li>The flow goes both ways </li></ul><ul><ul><li>The new joiner can be expert on something that the company is missing </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Make sure that you listen to her carefully </li></ul></ul>

23.
Keeping the Talent <ul><li>Have meaningful tasks </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Enough variation in work </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Challenges that can be solved </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Enough power and responsibility </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Provide a lot of possibilities to learn and develop oneself </li></ul><ul><li>Make sure that compensation is on the right level </li></ul><ul><li>Have supporting organisation in top-notch shape, too </li></ul>

26.
Purchasing Drupal Projects <ul><li>You need to understand (roughly) when to use Drupal and when to use something else </li></ul><ul><li>You need to know the most suitable Drupal vendors </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Typically, there are not that many </li></ul></ul><ul><li>You should know the fair price for the project </li></ul>

27.
Executing Drupal Based Projects <ul><li>Understanding what is easy, what is hard, and what is downright impossible with Drupal </li></ul><ul><li>Understanding how to test and verify Drupal based sites </li></ul><ul><li>Possibility to have the project results audited, if doubting the quality or performance </li></ul>

28.
Maintaining Drupal Systems <ul><li>Basic understanding of the Drupal way of working </li></ul><ul><li>Good knowledge of Drupal admin interface </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Including the most important modules in your system </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Get trained, if needed </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Basic troubleshooting skills </li></ul><ul><li>Understanding of Drupal’s and other systems’ log files </li></ul>

30.
System Development <ul><li>The same rules apply here as working with Drupal vendors </li></ul><ul><ul><li>In practice, you need to master all basic items and all advanced items that are relevant to your service </li></ul></ul><ul><li>You can also have a hybrid model that you hire a few external Drupal developers to help you with your soft points </li></ul>

32.
Drupal Projects <ul><li>Drupal projects are as any other midscale / large CMS project that is using an open source platform </li></ul><ul><ul><li>No support from system vendor, but a vibrant community and a lot of players eager to help you </li></ul></ul><ul><li>The system is complex, so have at least one senior Drupal expert in the project team </li></ul><ul><ul><li>The sheer number of available modules require good knowledge of the community </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Try to use as much third party code as feasible </li></ul>

33.
Multivendor Projects with Drupal <ul><li>Typical multivendor setting is as follows: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>One company takes care of technology (i.e. Drupal) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Other company takes care of concept, visuals, and HTML </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>You, as a customer, act as a middleman and project manager </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Sometimes there are more stakeholders: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Vendor of previous CMS providing support </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Integration point owners </li></ul></ul>

34.
Key to Success <ul><li>A working system is the most critical result of the project </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Keep the implementation vendor up to date in all decisions </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Let them train others in the peculiarities of Drupal (and be responsible for the results, too) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>HTML coding and Drupal templates should be done by the same company, typically Drupal implementation vendor </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Budget enough time for integrations and migration </li></ul>

36.
To be Successful with Drupal <ul><li>Make sure that you know where you are going </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Have a rough plan how to get there and understand what is needed from you </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Hire right kind of people and let them learn and master Drupal </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Provide challenges, ways to develop oneself, and enough responsibility with equal amount of power </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Don’t stand on their way </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Keep a good handle on project execution </li></ul><ul><li>Customers, understand enough to be able to push the vendors and demand proper implementations </li></ul>